If you’ve spent any time above treeline in Montana’s Beartooth Range, you already know the mountain goats up there have zero respect for personal space. The crew from Carnivore Expeditions found that out firsthand when they set up a remote camp in the Beartooth Wilderness ahead of an attempt on Granite Peak — Montana’s highest point at 12,799 feet — and woke up to uninvited guests that weren’t going anywhere.
Mountain goats have a well-documented obsession with human sweat and urine — both are loaded with salt and minerals that are hard to come by in alpine terrain. That’s not a fun fact you read in a brochure; it’s something anyone who’s camped in goat country quickly learns the hard way. They’ll chew your pack straps, lick your boots, and stand on your tent if you let them. In the Beartooths specifically, the goat population has been well-established for decades, and animals in heavily traveled areas near Granite Peak have become remarkably bold around people. Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks monitors the population through periodic aerial surveys, and the Beartooth herd has remained one of the healthier concentrations of Oreamnos americanus in the northern Rockies.
Worth noting for anyone planning a trip into that country: the Beartooth Wilderness sits within the Custer Gallatin National Forest, and standard Leave No Trace and food storage practices apply. Mountain goats are technically classified as a big game species in Montana — the state issues a limited number of tags through a lottery draw that routinely sees thousands of applicants competing for fewer than a couple dozen permits statewide. If you’ve got a goat tag burning a hole in your pocket, the season typically runs from mid-September through mid-November depending on the district, and the Beartooth unit is about as demanding a place to punch one as you’ll find anywhere in the lower 48. Most hunters pack in on foot, spend multiple nights at elevation, and deal with weather that can go sideways fast. Getting run out of your sleeping bag by a curious billy at 4 a.m. is practically part of the experience.
For the rest of us without a once-in-a-lifetime tag, this video is the next best thing. Carnivore Expeditions does solid work documenting backcountry adventures in Montana, and this one captures something genuine — the kind of wild, unscripted moment that reminds you why we fight to keep places like the Beartooth Wilderness roadless and intact. Pull it up before your next alpine trip. Consider it a warning and a preview rolled into one.
Editor’s note: Corrected the elevation of Granite Peak, Montana's highest point, from 12,807 feet to the accepted 12,799 feet.
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